


For every life, forego the parable

by NO2800



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: :(, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, During 3b, F/M, Nogitsune, Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Nogitsune Trauma, They love each other!!! I swear to god, They're just....... slow at going at it, Y'Know?, vivid dreaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-15 04:29:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12313740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NO2800/pseuds/NO2800
Summary: "Don't go." She pleads.Her tears wet the back of his shirt and he doesn't dare open his eyes. He stands still, arms pressed to his sides in her embrace.It's early morning, and he has to leave her."I can't stay."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, first of all - the title is from Bon Iver's For Emma, and _yes_ , it _is_ ironic, because this whole thing is pretty much a parable. 
> 
> It's inspired from Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants, and yes again, I'm aware that Hemingway could be a dick, but they made us read it in school and thus - inspired. So. Also, of course it's inspired by Gabriel Aplin's Start of Time because that's them and I am weak.
> 
> Maybe this only makes sense to me, but I like the thought of a train coming and the choice that represents, ya know? Also :( I feel like they didn't explore this narrative in the show as much as they could've. I guess this is a sort of headcanon of Stiles during the Nogitsune... ish.
> 
> This note is probably as long as the thing now, so Imma stop. Hope u enjoy.
> 
> NEW NOTE: I decided to make a multi-chapter of this! So... check that out if you want... !!!!! AND I'M GONNA EDIT! BECAUSE IT NEEDS EDITING. ok. bye.

He's standing by a rail.

There's a train coming. He knows it. There is a train coming, and Stiles is supposed to board it.

He stands at the small platform, and waits. It's early morning and fog still hovers over the moor that splays out on the other side of the rail.

His eyes finds the iron workings of it, follows it up, neck taut with how he bends it upward in an awkward angle. The rail stretches and stretches and stretches.

It's early morning, and he's waiting for a train.

Time passes. His eyes follow the rail to the horizon.

His mind strays.

He thinks that maybe God is time. Or time is God. Merciless, never stopping and equally hard on each thing that walks with it, mountain to sand, tree to grain, human to bone.  
He thinks again.  
He thinks that for sure, she's kind too, time.  
She heals, caresses his chin so many times that creases form at the corners of his eyes, she embeds there, it's her testament of love.  
Maybe she wants to take him back to the beginning. Before everything he saw reminded him of something else.

What happens at the start of time?

He doesn't know.

  
But if time is God, she wants to give him a train to board, and so he waits.  
And waits and waits and waits.

There's an old maple by the platform. Green leaves dress it. He waits, and they turn brown.  
He waits, and they fall to his feet. He waits, and the tree claws naked towards the sky.

It's early morning, and he's waiting for a train.

Finally. There it is.

He spots it on climbing over the edge of the earth. But it's yet so far away. It seems to be standing still as he watches it. Only a mirage, the picture of it trembling with distance.  
But he waits. New leaves sprout from the maple. His shoulders ache with the awkward angle.

"Don't go."

The warm hush of her whisper brushes over his neck, and he closes his eyes. Doesn't dare to turn, because then he won't be able to leave, and he must.

"I have to." He replies, and his voice is barley a breath.

There's a cool press of lips against his neck, and small arms wrapping around his frame, holding him tight.

"Don't go." She pleads.

Her tears wet the back of his shirt and he doesn't dare open his eyes. He stands still, arms pressed to his sides in her embrace.

It's early morning, and he has to leave her.

"I can't stay."

He opens his eyes.

The train stops, suddenly in front of him.  
He can't see inside of it. The windows are tinted, and still he gets the feeling that hundreds of eyes watching them from the carts.

"Please, don't go." She sobs and warm streaks of tears paints down his face as well.

He turns then, in her arms, and his hands come to cradle her face as she blinks up at him. She's the most beautiful sight to behold.

"Lydia. You know I can't stay."

He's crying. Their tears mix as she winds her arms around his neck and he kisses her. He doesn't wait now. He breathes, his heart thumps and his hands tremble. He lives, he lives, he lives.

She pulls back, and the leaves have turned brown.

"I know." She whispers against his lips, and then she steps back. Slips away from him, eyes big and his feet nailed to the platform beneath him as he reaches for her.

"Don't leave." He says, mimicking her from earlier and ignoring that it doesn't make sense.

She stands perfectly still, but her eyes are no longer meeting his, instead they are trained on his fingers as they reach for her. He only then realises that his hands are covered in blood. He only then realises that there's an ugly scar right above her heart, peeking out from beneath her dress.

His hands start to shake, he can't concentrate but something isn't right.

"Did I hurt you?" His voice breaks.

Her eyes finds his again. Her hand lifts to absentmindedly trace over the thick lines of the scar. She nods.

"Yes."

His hands curls into fists as he tries to stop them from trembling.

"But not yet."

Her voice is small as she speaks up, and she's moving again, away away from him. Always.

He closes his eyes.

And then for a second she's close again. He feels her pressed against him, her hands on his cheeks. He forces his eyes closed harder.

"Tell me you won't do it," her breath ghosts over his lips as she whispers.  
"Tell me you'll stay."

The locomotive rings a warning bell and hundreds of eyes are watching them.

"I don't think I can." He says back.

He opens his eyes, and she's gone. Only then, after a moment of hesitation, is he finally able to move, and he boards. Knuckles turned white and wetness still on his cheeks. Lips still swollen from hers.

The train is vacant, at least to the eye, and he takes a window seat, decides to travel backwards. That way he sees the details first, flashes of them, and then, as the distance comes, he can put them in a bigger picture. His fists clenches. He's only getting the details.

Maybe time isn't kind. Or maybe, she's only cruel to him.

The train starts to move and the fog lightens.

Suddenly, he sees her.

He stands up, rushed as he presses his palms against the window. Blood smears across the glass.

She stands on the moor, dress floating above her feet and hair curling around her face as she meets his eye. She looks almost transparent, unrooted and volatile, like a ghost.

The carrige moves, his hands pound the glass, her eyes follow him as the train leaves.

 

  
In the middle of an inhale, already scrambling for grasp in his sheets and with a sheen of sweat covering his forehead-

She's not there.

He waits for the exhale.

The tree outside his window is naked, clawing towards the sky.

-He wakes up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I decided to make this a multi chapter, because I just kept seeing them, this, happen. Idk... I'm intrigued tho!! 
> 
> Disclaimer is due, because from now on there'll be canon divergence from the start of season 3b and onwards. 
> 
> So like, everything that has happened up until the start of 3x12 is the same, but the it kinda takes its own turn! 
> 
> Please enjoy and/or leave feedback!

"You okay?"

His dad is staring at him, eyes pinched, over the breakfast cereal and the brown oak of their kitchen table.

He blinks once at the question. Spoon freezing halfway to his mouth and a sudden pang of something to his chest making it feel like a lie when he answers.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Noah's eyes slit further as he leans back in his chair, mug of coffee cradled in one hand, clearly scrutinising him.

But then they relax, the crowfeet just beneath the edge of his brow smoothing out as he waves his hand dismissively.

"You just..." he hesitates for a second, "Look a little off, is all." He explains, blowing on the scalding hot drink in his cup.

Stiles chews, doesn't know why it suddenly feels hard to swallow.

"It's none of those..." Noah trails off, eyes averting, because Stiles knows this is still too new and all too much for him.

"Supernatural... things, is it?" He finishes, eyes finding Stiles' again, and Stiles is finally able to swallow.

"Oh." His brow pinches before his ducks his head a little, gaze landing on the the last few pieces of cereal swimming in is milk, like small isolated islands, detached from each other.

"No. No none of that." He replies, looking up again and dropping his spoon into his bowl.

"Just couldn't get much sleep last night." He answers, somewhat honestly, and Noah nods, seemingly satisfied with this answer. This is something that he's familiar with, this is something that Stiles knows he feels like he can handle.

"Just go easy on the Aderall kid." He says, sipping on his coffee.

Stiles nods, humming as his eyes stray outside the window. It's a nice day out, although fall is creeping upon Beacon Hills. It doesn't really get that cold, not in these parts of California. More like a bit chilly.

"Yeah I will." He replies after a beat.

He's telling the truth. Maybe not all of it, but it's not like Noah hasn't got enough on his plate as it is already.

They're just dreams. It's nothing strange.

He'd read up on it the other night. Spiralled into internet threads on dreams related to trauma, (god knows he's got enough of that for it to make sense,) and they had all told him that is was totally normal. It was part of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder experience. They're just dreams. It's nothing supernatural. Nothing strange.

And yet it feels like he's lying.

He shakes his head a little, trying to shrug it off. It's probably nothing.

Last night he'd dreamt about a big grand oak. There was something buried beneath it, he can't quite remember what it was, or why it was important, but he'd been on his knees by it, hands digging through the earth feverently.

He flexes his fingers as he remembers the desperate feeling of it. As if time was running out. A shadow hovering above his shoulder urging him on.

He looks down.

A cold sensation runs through him as he spots dirt beneath his fingernails. He closes his hands, hiding his fingers from view and looks up at his father from over the table, rushed, and suddenly afraid of being found out.

Noah's gaze is steadily fixed on the newspaper in front of him. The set of his shoulders relaxed as taps his fingers in time to the beat of the song playing on low volume on the radio.

It's nothing.

He folds his arms over his chest.

They're just dreams.

  
••

 

"Dude."

Stiles sighs as Scott pokes his arm again, for the _fifth_ _time_ , over the lunch table. Because frankly, he's fed up. He rolls his eyes and groans.

" _Yes_ Scott, alright? Yes. I think Allison still digs you, as in more than a friend and _yes_ , as in she's totally making goo eyes at you right now, much like you're making goo eyes at her. So would you _please_ stop asking?"

Scott's eyes grow wide as Stiles glares at him over their lunch-bags and makes a exasperated sound.

"Yeah, no-" Scott starts and Stiles wonders idly how much force he'd have to use to be able to stab him with the plastic fork he's holding. Scott could take it. Definitely. He'd be healed in seconds anyways.

"Thanks man, but that's not it."

Stiles screws his eyes up in confusion at his best friend. 

"What?"

Scott's eyes flicker nervously and he takes a sip of juice before continuing.

"Have you like, broken something of Lydia's, stepped on her dog, or likewise lately?"

He feels his thoughts lump together at Scott's words and the sound of her name. Either Scott isn't making any sense or he's missing half of this conversation.

"No?" He replies, a little unsure as Scott fiddles with the cucumber in his salad.

He looks back up to meet Stiles' eyes, his expression scrunching up into, oh no, God, _the puppy-face._

"Have I?" Scott's asks and seems profoundly terrified at the mere suggestion of it.

Stiles shakes his head, taking a deep breath as he lifts his thumbs to rub at his temples, an headache slowly beginning to fester there.

"Scott?" He inquires, voice edged with a warning note, and Scott finally makes relenting grunt in the back of his throat.

"Then why is she looking at us like she's planning our joint funeral?!" He stage-whispers, throwing his hands up and gaze once again moving to over Stiles' shoulder.

Stiles wrenches around in his seat, accidentally toppling over his empty box of milk and stool screeching loudly with it, to follow Scott's line of view. He wants to roll his eyes at himself for a second, because of all things his genetics could've chosen to leave out, why'd it have to be subtlety?

He forgets all about it a second later though, as his newly gained view of a seething Lydia Martin staring right at him, confirms Scott's worries.

He swallows loudly.

"Uh-"

She rips a piece of bread loose from her small French loaf with nails painted red and plops it into her mouth, murderous expression remaining as she holds is gaze the entire time.

"Dude," he begins, feeling his hands get clammy.

"I don't know." He finishes.

Apparently though, he's about to find out. Because the moment he rises from the table, disposing his trash and grabbing his backpack, she does the same.

"Lydia." He greets her tentatively as she sidles up next to them on their way to exit the cafeteria, waving goodbye to Allison whom is heading the other direction for class. She ignores his greeting in favour of grabbing his arm in an iron grip and pulling him to the side the moment they set foot outside.

"Um, Lydia what-" he begins as she leads them off to the side and he stumbles after, dumbfounded.

"Explain." She orders him, dropping his arm to be able to push the sleeve of her blouse higher up, revealing the cream skin of her under arm, and turns it towards him.

He stares at her for a moment, feeling Scott hovering a few meters away, obviously not wanting to interrupt, and his headache heightens.

"Explain what?" He asks, and he sounds border on annoyed. He almost feels bad about it, but then he doesn't.  
Because why are people always demanding answers from him? He'd like some answers himself, actually. Like why, of all things you could do to calm someone with a panic-attack down, had she kissed him? and why does she smell so nice all the time? How could the Mets lose to freaking Oregon? And how does Deaton not come across as a little creepy to anyone but him?

Her eyes narrows at him and he deadpans.  
"What, Lydia? Do you want me to explain why evolution has granted you an lower arm? Because that could take a while, and to be honest I don't-"

Her face falls, and suddenly she looks a little vulnerable beneath his gaze.

"No." She interrupts him and his mouth snaps closed. He blinks at her as she motions downwards, and something irks in his chest, making him reach for her and his fingers splay out over her wrist as his eyes lands on her arm again, holding it up so that he can see.

She freezes for a moment, going rigid beneath his touch, before her shoulders slackens and she points with her free hand.

"This."

And he sees it as he trails up the delicate bones of her wrist.  
There's a small S painted on her arm. No, painted seems wrong, rather marked, tattooed into her skin. He runs his thumb over it once, as if to see if it sticks. It seems strangely permanent.

"You got a tattoo?" He asks, because he doesn't know what else to make of it. There's a small S permanently marked into her skin and he can't tell her why that is and that seems almost a felony when she glances down at it and then back up at him. Her body curls in on itself and his grip on her lightens, his fingers only loosely circling her wrist.

She's close and he gets the strange thought that he's missed her. He's seen her almost every day since they took down the Alpha Pack, but he's not really talked to her, like this, alone.

Not talked to her like they'd did all summer when Lydia one day had materialised outside his front door, starting to spout questions at him. At first about the supernatural, and then about school, and then about that article they'd both read from Illustrated Science.

"No."

Her voice is small. He hates it.

"Did you, like fall asleep against a textbook?" He probes, because that coldness, from earlier this morning, seems to have wormed inside his chest again. It's nothing. Or, seeing as they're in Beacon Hills and nothing here is ever a coincidence, it's probably something. She shakes her head and he sighs.

"Everything alright?" Scott says, pretending that he doesn't have superior hearing and hasn't heard everything they've said.

Stiles glances up at him where he stands, weary eyes and straight back, a little bit off to give them space. He's not sure why. Because although Lydia had specifically targeted him there's nothing to be talked about, or going on between them, that would require Scott stepping back.

"I..." his eyes wander back to the small marking and Lydia stares at him as if there's something yet to be said. As if she's waiting for an answer still.  
"I don't know man." He replies to Scott finally.

Scott glances down at his phone, hoisting his backpack higher up on his shoulder.

"We've got chemistry in two minutes." He informs Stiles, eyebrows raising.

And that's right, Stiles knows Scott is still struggling with attendance. His own grades are fine though, and he knows that so is Lydia's.

"You go ahead." He nods towards Scott. "Make up an excuse for me, will you?"

Scott looks uncertain, fingers sliding on the strap wrapped around his shoulder.

"I'll fill you in later." Stiles promises, giving Scott an intent gaze. Finally Scott resides, nodding silently before slipping away towards the push doors back into school.

He turns back to Lydia, and notices that his hand is still wrapped around hers, notices that she's closer than he'd originally thought. It pulls somewhere beneath his heart as she sets her jaw and angles her chin up towards him.

He knows that she doesn't mean what his brain immediately registers the movement as, but it still twist in his stomach as he thinks about leaning down and kissing her again. Like she had done not long ago, although during a completely different circumstance.

"So you really don't know?" She asks, searching his face for something. 

"This isn't something you're not telling me about?" She asks again, and a a faint blush paints high on her cheeks as she does. He gets the strange note that she's embarrassed to be asking, humiliated to have to turn for help. She thinks, he realises, that there are things they're still not telling her. 

He feels guilty all of a sudden, to not have made an effort to talk to her. To have given her the space he'd thought she wanted, when in reality maybe he was the one needing distance. Distance to be able to clear his head and make sure he doesn't drown in it again, wanting her, that ever-throbbing ache beneath the surface of his being. He needed distance so that he'd be able to be her friend, and has simultaneously let her down by doing exactly that.

"No Lydia." He says softly. His thumb stroking a circle into her skin as he says it, to get the sentiment across. 

"Of course not, if something was up we'd let you know." He reassures her.

She stares up at him.

"I thought you'd know." She says finally, after a moment of silence. Her gaze shifts down to the marking and his hand flexes around her.

His brow furrows, and he traces the small letter with his finger.

"Why'd you think that?" He questions feeling her gaze upon him.

It simmers in his chest as her skin tickles against him and he wants to wind his arms around her suddenly, press her close to him and tell her that she's okay now. That it's over. They're safe.

Thing is, he doesn't feel safe. He feels like something is hovering just behind his shoulder still. A shadow. Something dark.

There is an inexplainable marking on Lydia's arm and he feels like there's a piece of sanity lost from him every time he wakes up after yet another strange dream.

Perhaps, it's not over. She's not safe and he's not okay.

"Because..." Lydia starts and something in her voice makes his throat tighten. He looks up and finds her lifting a hand to his neck. The pads of her fingers brushes beneath his ear in a way that feels invading and intimate. His breath stutters and his gaze catches on his own reflection in the glass wall of the cafeteria behind her.

He sees it at the same time as she speak up again.

"Because..." She swallows, tongue darting out to wet her lips.

There is a marking, almost identical to hers, but reversed, turned the other way around, upside down, on the the spot where her touch still lingers, right below his ear.

Evey other sound dulls to the whisper of her voice, stark against the sudden rushing silence in his ears.

"You've got it too."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soz. Another chapter is coming soon.


	3. Chapter 3

She's wearing green and yellow today. Green plaited skirt that brushes her pale thighs and a yellow knitted turtleneck that somehow doesn't clash with the colour of her hair.

He shifts a little where he lays, half draped over his desk, chin resting against his folded arms upon it.

She's on her phone when she walks into the classroom, her thumb scrolling upwards and gaze fixed on the screen.  
But then she suddenly looks up, scanning the room, and although her eyes lands on him last he somehow doesn't find the time to look away. He flashes her a languid smile instead, something that feels brave in a way he thought he weren't.

But she had kissed him, two weeks ago on the locker-room floor. And then, then he had died.

And now, it seems everything has been put into a new perspective a little. Nudged somehow, just a tiny bit different.

He doesn't remember being dead. He wishes he could say that he did, cuz that'd be cool, you know? He remembers big, white, empty space and nothingness.

A strangely comforting memory. Like his cereal the other morning. He felt like a detached piece, floating in thick oblivion.

(He tells himself he doesn't remember what it's like being dead, because that'd be too tempting. That blank, soft and dull push of void against him. Like someone holding their hands over his ears and how air feels if you wave your hand through it fast enough.)

She stares at him for a second, doesn't return his smile but blinks at him in a manner he prefers over the tight-lipped, forced grimaces she seems to offer everyone else. Anyone who asks her how she's doing, or if she's coming to that party this weekend.

She blinks at him, he raises his brow and a dent forms in her cheek as her lips purse. She turns away then, unhurriedly, attention back at her phone, and resolves, apparently, to take the vacant desk a row in front of him to the right.

He follows the movement of her hair as it falls over her shoulder when she sits down.

This is maybe what has shifted. He sort of feels allowed to look now. Doesn't need to hide or scramble away when she finds him out. He's allowed to talk and make her laugh and to look.

He stares at the back of her head for moment, just about to lean over and poke at her shoulder with the butt of his pen, when Finnstock slams his folder down at the lectern and announces the start of class with a "Greenberg! Move to the back, I've had a rough enough morning as it is."

Stiles saw him with a flat tire on his way to school, so for once it seems justified.

His phone vibrates on his desk with a text. He grabs it hurriedly, pulling his hands down into his lap beneath the desk, making sure Finnstock hasn't seen him before glancing down at the screen.

It's from Lydia.

His eyes finds her immediately, but she seems as calm as ever, elbows resting on the table and gaze trained forward. He can't really make out her face from where he's sitting though, and so he resolves to open his text.

It's as if her voice whispers it into his ear when he slides his finger across the screen, and he almost shudders with it, eyelids fluttering.

" _Ask to go to the bathroom 10 minutes into the lesson."_

His stomach lurches. Has something new happened? Is she in danger?

When he looks up again though, she's eyeing him from over her shoulder and suddenly his abdomen flexes and his neck feels heated instead. She's looking at like- well. Like _something_.

Ten minutes should feel like ten years in his experience, but suddenly he glances at the clock on the wall and the time has passed, slipped through his fingers like quicksand.

His hands shoots up, because apparently, he has literally no cool at all when it comes to her and that's just his life now.

Finnstock grumbles for a moment, something about the bowl movements of adolescents, but finally lets him of with a noncommittal wave.

As soon as he's out the classroom he drags a hand through his hair nervously. He pulls at his hoodie and tries to lean casually back against a locker as he awaits her.

She exists exactly three minutes later, and he almost swoons, his casual lean completely ruined by how he almost trips over his own feet when he straightens up.

An amused smirk pulls at the corner of her lips and her arms fold as she watches him regain his balance.

"I'm-" he begins, hands brushing down the front of his shirt. "Hi." He finishes, wincing, because oh dear lord, why?

"Hi." She nods back.

There's a moment of silence, and he relaxes somewhat, one hand gripping around his phone and the other one falling still at his side. She's wearing suede heels, at least four inches high, and he still towers her.

"So..." he draws the word out. "What's up?" He settles on, and she broadens her stance a little as she looks down.

"Could we go somewhere else?" Her eyes finds his again as she asks, and there's suddenly a serious note to her voice, grave in a way that makes his eyes twitch as he squints at her, trying to locate the wrong.

"Sure." He agrees.  
"My Jeep's parked right outside, we could-"

"How about the schoolyard?" She interrupts and he feels himself frown. It's not a very private setting, if that's what she's looking for.  
He glances outside. At least it's empty, most of the students attending their afternoon classes, he assumes.

He merely nods in response, and gestures for her to lead the way. He follows, just behind her, shoving his phone down his pocket as they begin walk.

She chooses a concrete bench by the stairs climbing up towards the school from the parking lot. Behind it a grand oak towers, providing shadow for them as they approach it.

She sits, smoothing her skirt down underneath her thighs as she settles. She stares ahead, out into thin air, mind obviously occupied elsewhere, and he hesitates for a second before sitting down next to her.

She's quiet for a moment, and he waits, hands starting to fiddle in his lap, and eyes blinking hastily at the sun through the green foliage, before turning back to her.

Her hand moves suddenly, covering his, stilling them where they'd been rubbing together. He freezes, stares down at her small fingers gripping at his left hand, and then he closes it, squeezing her reassuringly.

He glances up, and she's still staring ahead, but keeps her palm pressed in his.

"Can you feel it too?"

He swallows at her question. He could pretend that he doesn't understand, that he doesn't know what she's talking about.  
Problem is, he does. He knows.

She's asking if he feels the tug, right beneath his heart when he's about to fall asleep, a tug that reminds him greatly of the one he feels whenever he finds her looking at him.  
She's asking if he wakes up gasping in the middle of her night, feeling her grip at his shoulders as she pushes him beneath the surface. She's asking if he feels it too, their tether.

"I- yeah." He licks his lips, resolving to fix his gaze ahead, much like her, because looking seems hard all of a sudden.

She kissed him. She drowned him.

He's been having a lot of strange dreams lately. He recalls something vaguely from last night. There was a train coming, and her skin was porcelain. The details of it seems to have slipped from him.

He turns to her again.

"What's it like for you?"

His voice, although hushed and said here, outside and in open air, feels loud. Perhaps it's the question, not how he asks it.

She's doesn't answer him at once. In his peripheral vision he sees the light wind making strands of her hair shift over her sweater. He likes it, he decides. This sweater. Likes the colour of it and how it makes her look like she's toasty warm. He likes her. Likes how she's canny, sharp-witted and headstrong. She drowned him and then she pulled him back, out of the soft nothingness and right out onto the hard concrete floor of the clinic.

No empty, void space feel as good as her hands on him, he decides. Even if she's drowning him.

"I don't know." She says finally, and he has almost forgotten his question.

Her lips part as she turns to him, eyelashes brushing her skin as they flutter.

"I think it's my fault." Her words are choked, sudden, and her eyes suddenly shining with withheld tears. It feels like someone's punched the air out of his lungs out of nowhere.

His hands fumble, palms turning upwards and his hands closing around the one of hers. He scans her face, searching for an explanation.

"I think it's my fault that you're..." she goes on, and the shadows grow longer around them.

A cold hand grips at his lungs. A realisation slowly dawning on him.

"I feel it." She whispers. He clasps her hand in the both of his. Her eyes bores into him.

"I feel it when you're gone at night."

He drops her arm, pushing up from the bench suddenly. He feels brunt, scorched and exposed.

He stares down at her.

It's nothing. They're just dreams. Just dreams. They're not dangerous.

"Don't go." She says, and panic starts climbing his throat. When he looks up, away from her, the grass around them has turned brown, and the big oak is suddenly naked, the leaves that a moment ago were stark green now laying brown and crispy on the ground beneath them.

There's no oak in the schoolyard, he sluggishly comprehends.

When he looks back down at the bench it's gone, and so is she.

He stumbles backwards. But when his hands reach for the wall of the school, they sink suddenly, and when he pulls them away from whatever it is they're covered in mud.

He feels it soaking in through the knees of his jeans. He's standing on all four in it. The schoolyard has vanished and there is woods surrounding him, the ground is wet, muddy and tough, although the sun shines ferociously above him.

He's heavy. So heavy, can barley stand to crawl forward, but does all the same.

His hands finds something solid, and when he looks up there is an all too familiar stump of a tree before him where the grand oak had been only a moment ago.

Small hands grip at his arms again, yanking him forward.

Lydia is clad in a thin slip dress.

Nighttime falls around abruptly, rain lashes down and the wind roars pulling at their clothes. She's dirty and a open wound gapes at him from her chest. She looks angry and he tries to wring his hands away. Her grip is too strong, he can't escape it.

"Tell me you won't do it!" She cries at him. grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling his head against her chest, her arms winding around it, holding it there, in a forceful, desperate embrace.  
"Promise me!" She sobs, her whole body wrecking with it.

Then she's gone again.

Everything is gone.

Everything is black around him. Completely silent.

He cowers back, stumbling in the darkness.

"I promise!" He screams, voice ripped from his burning throat.

There's no echo of him. There's nothing beneath his feet.

"I promise!"

He falls.

 

  
"Stiles!" His father shakes him.

There is a noise. A scream.  
He realises suddenly, that it's coming from him. He snaps his mouth closed, feels his eyes widening as he stares at his father, his fingers crampingly clinging to the front of Noah's t-shirt.

"You're okay." His father promises, soothing voice and warm palms.

Stiles scrambles, moving away form his touch to the foot of the bed, pulling his knees up to his chest.

"Am I -" his voice doesn't sound right.

"Am I really awake?"

There's a note of desperation to his words, and his father seems shaken as he stares at him.

He can't help it.

"Dad, am I awake?" His question is a whisper, and his eyes flickers around the room, trying to find confirmation.

Noah's hand comes, carefully back to his shoulder and Stiles fixes his eyes on his face again.

"You're awake son." Noah promises.

Alright.

So,

He wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter coming sooooon.
> 
> And also, I don't know how clear it was in the chapter, but he never actually read her text. He just went through the motion of it, if that makes sense?? Tell me if it doesn't! Cuz he's not supposed to be able to read in dreams and all of that!

**Author's Note:**

> Pleeeeaaasseee leave a comment, or any kind of feedback, it's my only form of nutrition. 
> 
> And I'd love if you'd like to share any thoughts you may have had on this! <3
> 
>  
> 
> ...
> 
> <3


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